


The Hero of Horseshoe Bay

by nonky



Category: Nancy Drew (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29532798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: Nancy didn’t know she’d been testing people. She risked her life because it felt more like living to be doing something without caution. She’d been reacting fast and solving supernatural dilemmas by throwing open haunted rooms and hoping what she found got her out of the immediate trouble. Her friends had been pulled along because they were loyal. McGinnis was right to chastise them about seances. They were novices doing what experts would hesitate to hint was possible.A quick, light on spoilers post-ep for episode 2x05
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14
Collections: Nancy Drew TV Series (2019)





	The Hero of Horseshoe Bay

Regrets bloomed like weeds with enough shit thrown on her life to fertilize them. It was tempting to call the mess too much to fix, but it was connected to her. She owned the seeds of her errors, and she had to own her shit to make things right. 

Nancy had never really done anything terrible in her past that required apologizing. She’d said it, quickly and nearly unthinking over silly offenses. Honestly, she’d mostly assumed her life would be typical. She would make small mistakes because of reckless moments, or because she was young or stressed or weak momentarily. She would get tipsy on wine coolers and mouth off, or take out a bad mood on her boyfriend. People ignored that stuff, awkwardly brushing off any real conversation to settle the grudge.

She had never felt guilt until her mother was dead, and even then she’d known Kate Drew didn’t die because of a slight from her teenage daughter. It was a psychological flaw in humans to try to wallow in memories of the dead in negative ways. Nancy had replayed every snotty comment she’d ever let loose. But tantrums and quarrels weren’t causes of cancer. She’d known the emotion of survivor’s guilt was about her brain processing loss. 

The depression she’d fallen into after her mother was gone was normal. It served a purpose in the arcane workings of the mind. But it was clear her actions recently had been coming from dark hopeless impulses. She’d complained her friends weren’t cooperating but her team work was dismal, too.

Self-pity was obvious in the face of her real life story. A suicidal teenage mother was a good excuse for a lot, except Nancy had all the advantages of a stable two parent home and total ignorance. The shock was real, but the day-to-day had been better than many people ever had. She was mourning the idea of Lucy and even missing the haunting of her ghost. But she had to pick between being coddled like a hurt child or treated like an adult. She had wondered sometimes if her frantic moods were a mirror of Lucy’s restlessness. Burying her birth mother illegally in the woods had given closure Kate Drew’s public funeral hadn’t given Nancy.

She had used Nick. The sex had been mutual, but the way she’d dismissed his real attempts to date her was openly throwing away all he had to offer as a person. She was lucky Nick was so good. He was genuinely Christian in his beliefs. He forgave her before she was even able to recognize it was what they needed to be friends. He had known part of Nancy was six feet deep in her mother’s grave. If one of them had to rise above and move them to a new relationship, he was willing to stand on the edge of the hole and beckon her to climb out. 

Just like Nick didn’t have to stand by her, Bess would have been justified writing Nancy off as a pushy manipulator. She could empathize now with being outed as a member of a family that had previously rejected Bess’ own mother. Saying she was a Marvin prematurely was her way of wish fulfillment, and it was wrong to pick at that little bit of security. Anyone faced with meeting a bunch of relatives with no shared bond to smooth the way would fear the introduction. 

George had been working, caring for her sisters and attending school when her affair with an older man was discovered. It should have been a court case maybe or a situation where the Fans were offered counseling. But George had known her mother couldn’t hold up to a social services investigation. She’d been forced to deny everything and cut herself off from help. It was true Ryan had never forced her, but his power in the town was considerable. The gossip turned to bullying, and Nancy had been one of many people who didn’t say anything one way or the other. George’s mystery man wasn’t a case she had thought to solve because she’d filed it away as a stupid decision from her now friend. The prideful, stubborn streak George pointed at the world had kept her strong enough to succeed.

Nancy was sadly realizing she had been looking down her nose at most of the people in her life. She had written off Ace as a stoner because he listened more than he spoke. She had blamed him for reporting to Chief McGinnis. She had judged her father’s every action in the family because he hadn’t miraculously saved his dying wife. Ryan Hudson was a cardboard cutout of a rich man’s son in her estimation. Owen had to buy his way into her regard with favours before she saw him as a prospect for romance. People in law enforcement like Lisbeth and Tamura were regarded as the enemy when they had important jobs.

It was a bad habit to be transactional with people. It kept them arm’s length. She could pick and choose what she liked or needed and ignore their side of the interaction. 

Faced with real trouble she had instinctively fought the ghosts and entities before considering they might be the first victims of the curses they carried. She had found out everything about Odette’s tragedy and used it as ammunition. It was easy to continue hurting someone already so damaged people talked about them like they weren’t feeling human beings once. She had been making everyone monsters so she didn’t have to regard them with decency.

Carson Drew had apologized to her on what might have been her final day, and she’d felt his humble need to be understood. He didn’t want her to agree to get out of the talk, or even to accept his apology. It was too early to work through all the fallout of her secret adoption, especially living with it as a danger. The pain was going to be a challenge for a long time. But when she listened to him as the man who raised her, Nancy also had the resounding echo of a lifetime of love he’d given as a balm. 

Love had to be strong because it acted gently in soft touches and patience. It had to endure spitting rebuke, and it had to live past death. Everyone needed it. Everything needed love to survive long enough to be anything at all. For every vengeful spirit twisted into a wraith, there were many souls gone away to leave the living in peace. The difference had to be somewhere in the warmth of kindness remembered. No one died having done everything they’d wanted, but most of them let go without dragging bloody claws through whole towns.

Nancy didn’t know she’d been testing people. She risked her life because it felt more like living to be doing something without caution. She’d been reacting fast and solving supernatural dilemmas by throwing open haunted rooms and hoping what she found got her out of the immediate trouble. Her friends had been pulled along because they were loyal. McGinnis was right to chastise them about seances. They were novices doing what experts would hesitate to hint was possible. 

In doing everything to save her friends, Nancy knew she’d been the cause of some new shift on a wavelength she barely qualified to express in words. Something had washed over her, a sound unheard, a touch imparted without a hand, the coppery taste of her own fear, and a bluntly rational irrational knowledge. If she was haunted, it wasn’t going to be a loving mother this time.

She’d done something immense and undiscovered. While she was alive to correct it, Nancy had to return to Hannah and try to fix her hometown. It was a deeply flawed place, founded by some bad people with stolen wealth and cruelty. It was a harsh home for her with warring families and significant loss. But it was also the site of her childhood playground, the house she’d grown up and the people who gave her thousands of second chances. It was the place she’d been praised for saving a child while still a child herself. 

Heroes didn’t get to give up, but her choices mattered, too. She had to save the town the smart way, learning as she went to emulate Hannah’s devotion to secrets worth keeping. Nancy had gone into dark places and tracked dread with every step. Her cause now had to be the apology.


End file.
